Greg Trine lives in his hideout in California, where he has been saving the world since the seventh grade. What was he doing before this time? He doesn’t remember, but he’s pretty sure it wasn’t saving the world. Like his favorite superhero, Greg has trouble stopping trains, though he can stop a truck simply by looking at it.

When he is not ridding the world of devious and sinister bad guys, he is either trying to invent a new flavor of ice cream—his last one was Rainbow Trout Ripple—or writing funny books with his sidekick Rhode Montijo. Sometimes Greg makes Rhode laugh, and somtimes Rhode makes Greg laugh. They’re keeping track of this, and so far it’s a tie.

Greg is pretty sure he received a college degree in something, from a university somewhere. But it’s been so long that he’s probably forgotten everything he was supposed to have learned. He’s just glad to have discovered children’s books, and it is here he wishes to stay for a very long time. Or at least until Thursday.