Just before Christmas, Gus phoned and said the kids wanted to come for the holidays. Isa had some real doubts that it had been the kids' idea, but whomsoever's idea it was, it suddenly sounded very good to her.

"Are you and Cindy coming, too?" she asked, her voice carefully neutral.

"Nah, we'll just put 'em on the bus and tell 'em to stay sat or else," he laughed.

"Aren't they a bit young for that?"

"Nah, Darelle is Miss Common Sense herself They'll be fine."

Isa didn't figure Darelle for much common sense, and said so to Carol, who shrugged and shook her head slightly. "Maybe compared to the rest of them she is," she suggested. "Whose bright idea was this? Why don't we go down, pick them up, and head back with them the same day. Just whip in, grab 'em, blurt out the sorry, no, really, not even one cup of tea, we've got to hit the road or we'll miss our ferry connection and - zip - we're out again. If the kids get tired or we get tired, well, the highway is lined with motels from Gibsons to Madeira Park."

It worked. It worked so slick a person could have been excused for starting to believe in divine intervention. The kids were waiting, quiet but so eager, their packs by the door. Carol smiled widely, said a brief Hi, how are you to the adults, and lifted the packs from the floor. "Will you help me with these?" she asked, and both kids were up, opening the door, holding it open, fuss fuss fuss.

"Sure you don't have time for a cup of tea? Gus seemed disappointed.

"I wish we did," Isa fudged, "but the way they have the ferries scheduled, if we miss the one we're trying for there'll be a long wait at Earl's Cove."

I thought they went every couple of hours." Cindy's voice was tight and mistrustful.

"Oh, they do; from here to Gibsons," Isa explained, smiling. "But after Gibsons we have an hour's drive to the next one and that's where everything gets bizarre. Oh, here, I almost forgot, I picked up an extra schedule for you, just in case you change your mind and decide to bring in the New Year on the farm."

Cindy looked at the card before tacking it to the wall above the phone, and Isa knew she was checking on what Isa had told her about the schedule. Isa also knew that she would be able to skate around the truth with this woman, but not too far from it.

Gus hugged Isa. "We put a couple of their Xmas presents in their packs. Nothing noisy, though."

"Did you take pictures of them with the tree and all?"

"Yeah, I'll send you copies when they're developed."

The kids sat quietly in the car, wide-eyed, caught somewhere between glee and uncertainty.

"Will we stop for pees?" Donny asked, his voice not quite shaking.

"Oh, you bet we will," Carol said, as she drove easily through the city traffic. "We'll stop for pees and we'll stop for hamburgers and we'll stop for good looks at things. We might stop so many times it'll take us six years to get there. We might stop for so many things we forget where we're going."

"Did Santa come to your place?"

"Santa left a note on our tree. Wait until you see it. The tree, I mean, not the note. I bet you haven't seen such an eensy-teensy ittybitty tree before in your life."

"Does it gots lights?"

"It hasn't got lights. There's no room for lights. Our tree isn't even really a tree. You'll see."

"What did the note say?" Darelle demanded.

"The note said 'What kind of a joke of a tree is this? Those kids will make you get a real one'."

"Did Santa leave you a present?"

"Just a note."

Isa turned to smile at them in the back seat. "And the note also said, 'Nothing for you until you have a real tree'."

"Las' year we went to our auntie's place and had a tree and everything but this year we didn't go because my mom hates my auntie's guts," Donny announced. Darelle jabbed Donny in the ribs with her elbow. Donny glared. Darelle frowned. Donny slumped back and didn't say a word for over half an hour.

On the ferry they had hamburgers and yogurt. They wanted to go out on the promenade deck so Isa took them. But they didn't stay long; the wind was cold and their jackets were not new. In fact, Donny's jacket was about ready for the dog's bed.

"It won't be long now," Isa said. "And when we get home you'll have lots to do. Eggs to gather and cows to feed and if it snows, which it looks like it's going to try to do, we can rig up a slider for you tomorrow.

"What's a slider?"

"It's a thing that isn't a sled but works like one." The kids took one look at the decorated spider plant and burst out laughing.

"No wonder he left you a note!" Darelle giggled, "You're lucky he even came."

"That's what Carol said, too. Well, maybe tomorrow you can show us how to do it properly."

"You know how. Gus said when he was a kid you had a tree one time that touched the ceiling."

"That's true, we did. And we had to tie it to the back of the big chair so it wouldn't fall over on us. We don't want one that big again. "

"Gus said you always have turkey," Donny said hopefully.
"Will you have turkey?"

"Of course. If you want it."

"We didn't get no turkey yet. Mom said if we were going to be up here the lef'overs would just go to waste so we only had some hot wings."

"They were good!" Donny blurted. "But not turkey."

"You just wait until you see the turkey," Carol laughed. She headed for the freezer. "It isn't a great big huge one because, well, your mom was right about leftovers. But we got a fat one. Small and fat. Yum yum.

They stared at the frozen butterball, then looked at each other and grinned.

"We unwrap it, cover it with a tea towel and sit it here on the drainboard to thaw overnight. Then, tomorrow morning, we stuff it. And you guys have to help, okay? And when it's stuffed, we put it in the oven to cook and ... see about that tree we're supposed to rig up."

The kids were borderline exhausted after the trip, but trudged to the barn to help with the chores. They brushed the mare's flanks until even the thick winter fur gleamed and glistened. They weren't nearly as afraid of the animals as they had been on their last visit.

When the chores were done there was spaghetti with Paul Newman's sauce, and then it was bathtime. Donny almost fell asleep in the tub, and Isa had to towel him dry so he wouldn't fall into bed soaking wet. Darelle lasted maybe ten minutes longer, and then was asleep, her face finally relaxed.

The next morning they were up at eight, and so excited their adrenalin kicked the day into overdrive. Everything had to happen at once, and their voices got increasingly shrill.

Over at the next farm the kids were in Junior Forest Wardens and had been selling trees as a fund-raiser. Luckily they had a few left over; the smaller ones, the scrawny or tatty ones with gaps in the branches. "Good," Carol pretended to sigh with relief, "it will fit. I was afraid they wouldn't have one we could tuck in the corner."

"Do you got dec'rations?"

"We have some. And we're going to make more."

"How?"

They cut the cups out of egg cartons, crumpled up aluminum foil, then smoothed it out and fit pieces over the little cups. They painted other cups, they strung cranberries on a thread, they strung popcorn, and cut stars out of styrofoam cups. While Carol played overseer on the assembly line, Isa whipped into town to look for strings of lights. She thought she'd have hell's own time, but the hardware store had tables of surplus decorations, and at less than half price. Buoyed by her luck, she bought some glittery stars and plenty of icicles and tinsel. She also took half an hour to hit the kids' clothing aisles where the prices were about half what they had been before the great day. When she got home with the booty, Carol looked so relieved Isa knew she had been starting to feel desperate.

"Oh, good on you!" she breathed.

"Aussie rules shopping," Isa laughed. "No helmets, no penalties for using elbows. Here, kids, have a ball," and she turned them loose with the decorations while she and Carol went into the bedroom, closed the door, hurriedly took off price tags, wrapped presents and, finally, blessedly, carried them out to stuff them under the tree. The kids stared.

Then it was into the kitchen, where Carol already had the turkey stuffed and in the oven, and before long the rich scent of roasting butterball was joined by the smell of fresh-baked cookies and mince pies.

"We'll get the spuds and veggies on to cook, and then ... it's open-the-presents time."

"I'll peel," Darelle offered quietly. She looked at Isa, then at Carol, and finally at Donny, who was slowly and very carefully putting presents under the tree, his face glowing with excitement. "And thank you. He doesn't really believe in Santa Claus. Not really, but . . . "

"Oh, I think that's pretty normal," Isa lied. I don't really believe anymore, myself, but ... you never know."

The clothes fit and the toys were an absolute hit. Donny sat on the sofa, togged out in new stuff from the skin out, putting on and taking off his Garfield slippers. It seemed to Isa his body language had changed, he was suddenly more confident, but maybe she just imagined that.

She had forgotten how much food a couple of kids can put away at Christmas dinner. The butterball wasn't going to drown them in leftovers after all, thank heaven. They ate until she half expected them to open down the midline, and then, when they finally announced they were stuffed and couldn't eat any more, they dove into the dessert.

Darelle helped clear the table, Donny stood on a chair and washed dishes and Carol dried and put them away. Isa scraped the scraps into the dog dishes, poured gravy on the dog food, and mixed the mess together before putting it down for the mutts. Then she headed out to the barn to do chores, and when she came back in, the kitchen was dean and tidy and the kids were in the living room playing with their new toys and watching television at the same time.

By the time the kids were in bed, wearing their new pyjamas and stuffed with food, Isa was closer to exhaustion than she'd been in years.

"You okay?" Carol asked quietly.

"I would be if I wasn't so depressed."

"Right. And a jolly ho ho ho to you, too."

They cuddled together on the sofa, Isa with her head on Carol's shoulder, and neither of them was the least bit surprised when, without even looking at each other they both said, at exactly the same time, in exactly the same soft and almost mourning tone, "Ah, bah humbug!"

Snow started to drift from the low-hanging clouds the day before New Year's Eve. And they knew they were in for a good one because the flakes were small and dry, and they stuck to the ground. By mid-afternoon the white covering was ankle-deep. By the time evening barn chores were done there was enough on the long downhill slope of the driveway that the plastic garbage can lid could slide quickly and easily. When the kids finally went to bed, the utility room smelled of damp wool and the clothes-drying rack was covered with wet socks, damp jeans and shirts. Sodden new jackets hung on clothes hangers, dripping onto newspapers on the floor.

Isa went outside for her last check of things, so tired she felt as if she could lean against the holly tree and sleep upright. The flakes falling now were bigger. They hissed as they fell to the ground, and she imagined a light plop when they landed. The dogs hadn't yet managed to stain the snow yellow, there were no muddy bits of cow manureenriched goo, and in the light from the windows the white on the lawn fulfilled every promise of every postcard.

The movie screen on Isa's inner eyes began to run. She tried to turn it off, tried to have the film declared unfit for viewing, tried to call in the censors, tried to send it back to the editing room to be recut, but it was too late. All that takes time, and what might have taken hours in real time became but a few seconds of memory, with an effect that would last for weeks.

Snow falling then, too, and she wakened in a room made bright by clear silver moonlight. Strange noises, but not so strange she couldn't recognize them. And the grunting, the sucked in breath telling of pain, of shock, of fear. She didn't want to get out of bed, she wanted to crawl under her blankets, stuff her fingers in her ears, squeeze her eyes shut until she couldn't see things she knew were happening, and instead her feet were on the cold linoleum floor and she was running across her room. %When she opened her bedroom door the cold hit her like a slap in the face, and at the end of the hallway the door to the outside was gaping open, flakes of snow coming inside, melting on the door lintel, on the shoe-wiping rug.

Nobody in the house, the noise on the porch, more grunting, more gasping, loud hollow thwacking sounds, then thump-thump and she knew someone oh please god not Momma was going down the fourteen steps to the ground and going the hard, hurting way

please, not my Momma

"Oh god, Fred, stop," and it was Momma's voice, but not a hurt Momma.

The snow on the porch burned her bare feet, and she knew she should go get her coat, get her lined boots, but she couldn't turn away, she could only stand there, shivering, feeling her eyes so wide she was afraid the eyeballs would fall out, feeling her face going stiff, stiff, stiffer. She wanted to pee, but not in her Christmas pyjamas. She pressed her thighs together, sucked in her belly, holding the pee inside, waiting for the urge-need-demand to stop.

Momma and another lady, a blonde lady, someone the child didn't know or even recognize, were at the bottom of the stairs, clutching each other's hands, the blonde woman weeping. And Dad and another man fighting, vicious punches, swift kicks. Droplets of blood on the snow and blood smeared on their faces, some of it coming from Dad's nose, most of it coming from the eyebrows and mouth of the man she didn't know.

"Stop! Stop!" the blonde woman screamed, and then she was running, running between the two men, neither of whom wanted to hit her. They stepped back, breathing as hard as if they'd been running for miles, and then Momma was there, her arms around Dad, not so much holding him back as just holding him, her face against his chest, her tears wetter on his shirt than the falling and melting snow.

And then Dad was looking at Isa and he shook his head, but not as if he was denying anything, more as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. He put his big bloodstained hands on Momma's arms and pushed her away, not very gently. "Take your daughter back into the house where it's warm," he said. "Go on, woman."

" Please, no more - "

"Fine then, but take the child inside, she's going to catch her death of cold out here."

"Please. . . " and Momma was sobbing.

"For the love of Christ eternal," he roared, "will you do what I said? Get the girl inside or there'll be more than him nursing a thick lip. I said fine then, didn't I?"

Isa turned and went into the house, she didn't want to be the reason why the devil-light in his eyes flickered, didn't want to be why Momma fetched herself a thick lip.

She closed the door and padded to the big sawdust burner, gave the jigger thing a shake to knock down the ash, opened the draft to get the sawdust burning hotter, and only then noticed her feet were almost the colour of grape juice, with white blotches on the top. Momma came in, rushed to her, hugged her tight, stroking her hair.

"I'm fine," Isa-child said clearly. "I'm okay."

"Here, open the oven door, I'll put a folded towel on it so you don't get burned, then you put your feet here and get yourself warmed up. Oh baby, why did you go out in the snow like that?"

"I thought he was trying to kill you again." The child's voice was distant and matter-of-fact.

"You know your Dad would never hurt me," said Momma, who always told Isa god wanted us to tell the truth all the time, no matter what; said Momma who always told Isa telling ties was a sin; said Momma who until then had feet of gold and turned them to something less than clay. She smiled, but her face looked more like she was getting ready to scream.
"Your dad loves us both very very much."

Sound of a car engine, revving, then fading. The front door opened and a blast of cold entered the house first, then her dad, smeared blood congealing on his face.

He moved wordlessly to the kitchen sink, ran water and splashed it on his face, then held his right hand under the flow. His knuckles were swollen, and one of them was cut. He looked closely at the cut, then laughed, a hard, harsh, triumphant sound. He used the strong fingers of his left hand to squeeze, as if the cut were a pimple or a festering sliver. Something came out of the cut and he laughed again, got a small jelly glass from the cupboard and dropped something into it - clink. He held the glass out for Isa to see. "Stupid bugger left his front tooth in m'hand," he laughed. "And look, see there? It was his gold-mended one!"

Fresh blood ran from the knuckle, but he didn't care. He just poured some peroxide on it, wrapped his clean hanky around his hand and went to the icebox for a fresh beer.

"Why were you fighting?" Isa asked.

"Never mind now, dear, it's bedtime, Momma said hastily.

"He was talking when he should have been listening," Dad grinned. "And what he was saying was disrespectful to this house and the woman in it."

"Oh please, no, he didn't mean it the way you took it," Momma blurted. Would she never learn when to shut up? "It was a joke, is all."

His eyes changed to chips of blue ice. "And was I laughing? And if you were laughing, woman, tell me why!"

"No, no, I wasn't laughing."

As the cold left Isa's feet and moved to the pit of her stomach, she promised herself that she would never-never, not in her whole life-end up like Momma. She loved Momma, loved her so much it sometimes left her shaking, but she also knew which side her bread was buttered on, and maybe, just maybe.

"He won't be in a hurry to do it again," she said, and made herself laugh as if proud. "He's going to look funny with eyebrows sticking out like cow horns."

" Bloody right!" and Dad was laughing, lifting her from the chair, holding her with one arm and kissing her cheek.
"Here," he held the beer bottle to her mouth, "have a sip. And then you can't say I never gave you anything, right?"

When she went outside the next morning, the blood was still there on the trampled snow. There was more blood on the porch. And in the middle of it she could see the mark of her own little foot, where she had stepped in it and not even noticed. You'd think a person would know when she was walking on someone else's blood.

Isa never forgot what she had learned that night, even if she couldn't articulate it until later. There are only two kinds of people, the kind who get walked on and the kind who don't. Young as she was, she decided she wouldn't be the kind who got walked on, and if anybody tried, she was fully prepared to go for the throat.

The folding wooden chair was getting harder by the minute. One of the cross-slats got her in the small of the back, the sharp edge digging into her, pressing either on the hard nub of vertebra, or, worse, into the softer flesh between the bones of her spine. What had been merely uncomfortable three hours ago was past painful and well on the way to agonizing. The edge of the seat pressed against the backs of her legs, slowing the flow of blood, numbing her toes and feet. Her ankles swollen and numb, she wiggled her toes frantically, but all that got her was a sharp pinch above the elbow. There would be a blue bruise there within minutes. No wonder so many of the Family had varicose veins, phlebitis, fluid retention and dropsy! No wonder so many suffered paralyzing strokes! If God had intended them to sit all day Sunday on Spartan chairs, their legs would disconnect on Saturday night.

Doug O'Leary was well into his lesson. He'd been talking for almost an hour, carefully tracing some obscure trail that had started with the quotation, "A thousand years are but a day in the sight of God." Doug seemed to think at this point that he'd effectively disproved carbon-dating techniques and the theory of evolution and was zeroing in on something else. Probably yet another prediction of the day the world would end.

It was supposed to have ended March 21, 1843, according to William Miller. And when March 22 rolled around, the founder of both the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Seventh Day Adventists decided he'd been out half a year in his calculations and rescheduled the event for October 21. So, as the dawn broke, the Millerites went to the rooftops, ever nearer my God to Thee, with celebratory picnic lunches, just in case the great event was closer to twilight. They ate their lunches. Those who had leftovers ate them for supper, and on the 22nd they came down from the roofs, their faith still intact, and waited for the next prediction.

Doug had at least made it to the First World War. The world was supposed to have ended in 1914 too, but obviously hadn't. Doug seemed convinced that what had really been predicted was that those born in, or at least near, 1914 would live to see the end of the world. Unless, one could only suppose, a runaway bus intervened. Or disease. Or, oh-oh, wait a minute here, back up, each and every person born in or before 1914 is going to have to die before the last days arrive. Including those old Russians who live on yogurt and grain and show up in the pages of National Geographic looking translucent and calm, claiming to be one-hundred-and-six or two-hundred-and-four or whatever. Actually, she suspected, they were only sixty-three, but living in that place on that diet, it all seemed so much longer, so endless and unremitting.

And now he's reminding us about four score and ten. Ninety years. So 1914 plus ninety is ... what? 2004. Well, that'll give us a bit of time. We can all carefully choose our picnic baskets, start planning the menu, practicing our recipes, so that when we go up the aluminum ladder to the roof, we go up with something more in keeping with the occasion than mere peanut-butter sandwiches in a brown paper bag.

Look at Beth McRae staring up at him as if the sun rose and set only because he told it to. So much for upright whatever. He's married, got four kids, and his wife is as alive as anyone else. Bloody hypocrites. The most upright thing about Doug O'Leary seldom sees the sunlight. Two-faced ungodly righteous! Nobody looks at anybody else that way unless there's been encouragement. These are the same ones quote the Sermon on the Mount and say if you sin in your heart, you're guilty, even if you don't do anything about it.

She wiggled her toes again, got pinched again, but the Hand of God intervened and Doug O'Leary finished his lesson. People did not clap, but they did nod firmly, approvingly, before rising and moving to the hallway. Ten minutes to get the blood moving, pee and get back to Your seat before the next session.

She waited politely. Pregnant sisters first, then elderly sisters, then those sisters trailing children. And finally it was her turn, and none too soon; she felt as if she were going to flood. And, by God, there it was again! Something ... different ... about that knot in the wall. just as she'd thought last Sunday. Well, at least this week she was ready. Last week she hadn't been sure. Well, not true exactly, she had been sure, but what do you do? Yell, and have everybody look at you as if you were the pervert?

She bent forward, opened her purse, took out what looked for all the world like a tampon, then, just as she'd rehearsed a dozen times in her head, she pulled down her underpants and stepped out of one leg hole, letting the cotton wisp dangle. She put one foot on the toilet seat, leaned forward as if to insert a tampon and, instead, jammed the counterfeit tube through the knothole and squeezed. Then she hit the end with her other palm as hard as she could.

The squeeze bulged the hidden balloon, the slam sent a ballpoint pen through the end of the distended, fluid-filled party favour and a mixture of India ink and household bleach squirted out through the hole.

Calmly, then, she took the real tampon from her purse, pulled out the sodden one, inserted the fresh, dropped the used one in the toilet then stepped back into her cotton underpants. She pulled her sniper's revenge from the knothole, dropped it in the toilet and flushed. Then left the Sisters. Not the Women's or the Ladies', heaven forbid, everyone here was a Sister or a Brother. Except for the Servants and Elders, of course. They stood in loco parentis. Loco for sure, parentis probably not.

She walked quickly back to the hard wooden chair and sat down, A hiding her intense satisfaction. She had no idea what would happen next. Her stomach tingled and knotted pleasantly, her face and hands felt warm in spite of the chronic chill in the room. "You'll enjoy this next part," her mother promised with a satisfied smile, whose meaning was made amply clear once the congregation was resettled.

Anton Vaymer moved to the podium, his sheaf of notes at least an inch thick. Beside her, bladder still miraculously undrained, her mother sighed contentedly.

Daleth sighed, then wished she hadn't. Her mother was sure to misinterpret the sigh. Her mother misinterpreted everything, her capacity for revision practically astounding. He'll talk about how a widow had to marry her husband's brother to protect the purity of the tribe and ensure no quarrel over inheritance. Then he'll talk about what a great idea it is and how men should marry a sister-in-faith. An throw in some St. Paul, "better to marry than to burn," and probably the part about a good woman being more dear than pearls. And he'll look at me. In between every paragraph, he'll look at me. And she'll look approving and proud and suitably aware of her improved position. And soon they'll all be looking at me. She wished the floor would open, the roof fall or the Last Day arrive.

Anton Vaymer was a Servant, forty-five years old at least. His first wife took the kids and left him. Anton found her, reclaimed his sons and his daughter and reported her to the Elders. Her name was read out and she was Shunned. Anton divorced her and kept the children, and when she tried to fight him for custody the Elders of the congregation appeared as character witnesses for Anton. Anton remarried, to a seventeen-year-old sister-in-faith who immediately became mother to a ten-year-old, an eight-year-old and a four-year-old. A year later she had an infant to care for too. Three months ago she had died of post-partum haemorrhage, giving birth to her second child. Twenty-one years old, worked to death and fucked to death and not even cold in her grave, but Anton is on the prowl again. And even the poor dead woman's family approves of the prowl because she has been guaranteed her place among the Saved. When the world ends she will be raised to life again, one of the Chosen, and there is no marriage for the Chosen, they will spend Eternity in the service and worship of God, completely unconcerned with the things of this earth and the flesh. Besides, her two little ones needed a mother.

Daleth didn't want to marry Anton Vaymer. She didn't want to be mother number three to five kids aged from infant to fourteen. She didn't want to graduate from high school to a life of cooking, laundry, housework, child-care, pregnancy and more of the same.

High point of the day: the Head of the House comes home from work, has a bath, changes his clothes, is given a cup of tea and gets a report on everyone's behaviour so far. While he's having his tea and punishing the errant, the wife cleans the bathroom, hangs up his clothes, sets the table and serves supper to those not banished to their room -- after supper, home study. Then bath and bedtime for the children. Then dishes and clean up the kitchen. Then bath and bed and a bit of the old bounce on the bones. Tuesday night, the same, except dishes have to be done right after supper so everyone can run around like fools and get ready to go to Group Study. Two hours of that and home for the bedtime rush and, of course, more bone bouncing if the Head of the House wants. Wednesday night, the same as Monday night; Thursday night, the same as Tuesday night; Friday night, Hall Study for three hours. Saturday, all day it's "go ye unto the highways and byways and tell the good news in my name." Sunday, back to the hall for hours of folding chairs and listening ears.

Anton Vaymer finished, the faithful nodded, some of them sliding their eyes to where Daleth was sitting, hands folded on her lap, eyes downcast, face pale. The faithful were reaching for their books and their coats, getting ready to leave, and then Einair Swensen was up front, face nearly purple.

"Brothers and Sisters," he said loudly, "Servants and Elders. A moment please." His accent thickened. "We are much accused of being clannish, of ignoring other people, and of being unfriendly. Small wonder." He jabbed the forefinger of one hand into the palm of the other. "God said we should avoid the unrighteous, and so we do. And this often means we are martyrs in His name. " He shook his head, his jowls quivering. "Young Brother Bill McMillan went outside at mid-break, to get some fresh air and contemplate what he'd just heard And was set upon in the parking lot of this, our very own building. Set upon by thugs! By Philistines who willingly do not know our Father And right now, as I speak to you, young Brother Bill McMillan is in the hospital, seriously injured."

She almost laughed. But she had more sense than that, and besides, old Einair Swensen was glaring right at her! "This was the foul act of a devil worshipper!" he thundered. Still glaring at her.

My God, she realized, he knows Bill McMillan wasn't set upon by Philistines. He knows what happened. And he knows he's telling a lie!