1
Martha and me always loved the Guinness Book of Records, but we wasn't always sure how we'd get in there like, I mean we had no talents or nothing. I met Martha when she worked on reception at the building site -- I was fresh out of school and she'd been there for a few years after dropping out anall. One day I asked her to marry me and she laughed that booming laugh she does, haHAhaHAhaHA, like a spastic hiccupping or summit. She agreed coz she was bored and that, wanted a little blighter in her belly to get her into womanhood. As I was knocking her up, I had a thought. What if we was to make the most babies? Like, the Guinness World Record for making the most sprats? She was up for it. Up for anything our Martha. So we made the first one, called him One to keep it simple. I tried knocking up Martha a few days after One were born but she said her hole were too bruised to let me do it again. Time were a factor in making our record happen coz this Mormon lot had done so-and-so kids in like two years, so three weeks later we numbed her up on pills and I knocked her up again two months later when her hole stopped bleeding. We was excited about the record, but the nine month waits were hell . . . we wanted to be in those Records so bad.
2
Extra work at the site gave us more cash for One's food. Martha were sore and slept all the time, but she were excited about Two -- a lad this one. I thought about the sexes like: what if we got to ten sprats and we had one lad and nine girls, or like five lads five girls? If we got equal lads and girls that would be boss . . . would make what they call it, symmetry? Martha thought about her sister Claire, about getting her involved. She said Claire were a no-good dimwit and a good knocking up would see her right. I thought this would change our record, but Martha were like no, it would give us another record like, like the most sprats in the same family, the most sprats from sisters -- with the same father anall. So we got Claire in and she was like this mad bint, an even bigger laugh than Martha like HAHAHAHAHAHA, but she were prettier, and dumber. (Nothing wrong with Martha like, but her lot ain't the smartest bunch of folks). So I got Claire knocked up soon and a few months later Two were born in the same hospital . . . all the doctors were freaked like, but we didn't care, we was breaking records.
3.1
Claire gave birth to her sprat that she called One anall, but we kept it apart from our first One. It were part of a different record, but part of the same record attempt, so we tallied it with a decimal point and kept it in the spare room where Claire were sleeping. Our sprats were in our bedroom with us. Having Claire around meant Martha could go back to work in the office when she were pregnant, and we could bring in more cash for the sprats. We found some sponsors on the internet: a Japanese geezer was offering £10K if we got to ten before the decade were out. The rate we were going we'd do more than that! I knocked Martha up again after a few months (the doctor said we were to leave it three months or Martha would bugger her womb) and Claire too. The sprats kept coming.
4.2
Four were a girl. So far, two lads and two girls! Claire weren't a great mother: she spent her days before the TV while the kids were crying and needing fed and when two were born she were run off her feet, near had a nervous breakdown! It were bad for me too. I'd come home after humping bricks to all these wailing faces . . . we needed a bigger place than our flat, like. So we asked the Japanese lad if he could help us, seeing we were on target. He bought us this big house in the country like, with nannies and servants anall. Said he had a million invested in us . . . he bet a million that we'd reach ten fore the decade were out. If we didn't get to ten he'd take the house and that away. Fine with us!
6.4
I were getting shagged out after Six were born. Started using pills -- Viagra it's called, helps with stamina. We was in the papers, things like The House of Brats, the Man With the Golden Sperm. It were a laugh like, but Martha weren't pleased when the paper folk started talking about her as this "abuse victim" -- said she knew what she were doing she said, she weren't some pushover rape doll. Claire were upset she didn't get as much attention as her sister, she were stomping up and down the place shouting at all the nannies, cursing Martha for being a little bitch, whatever that were supposed to mean -- I think she were jealous of Martha's tally!
9.7
We was celebrities. A camera crew started filming us after Eight were born -- we got our own show called Extended Family, about us and our record. Since we didn't do no work now, nothing except knocking up and spitting out sprats, we grew our "public profile" and made more cash from the papers. We made sure our kids was raised proper by the nannies, and I liked to walk about the place, I were a real Lord of the Manor. Our kids were growing up now (we put number tags on them) and getting to a certain age. One day, when Martha were nine months into Ten's time, one of the nannies told me One had her first period. I went to her, to ask her, did she want to help with the record? Did she want to be a part of something big? She were up for it -- I promise, I wouldn't do nothing to hurt the sprats, not me -- and I went and knocked her up.
11.9.1
There were these groups outside the house -- there'd always been nutters trying to stop us like, but these were REAL nutters. Tried to get and steal One, thought she were being raped, but she weren't -- she agreed to help with the record. She said it on the telly! It weren't nothing weird. One had her first One, who we gave her own decimal point after Claire's Nine. One were a good mother to her One, breast-feeding and sleeping in its room like the nannies -- nothing like Martha! The Japanese man made his million and sent us a thank you card, real nice it were, though he said we ought to put the kids to work, making shoes like. Bit weird that. We built a playpark in the garden and a school in the second wing -- never a dull moment for the kids, really, nothing to crow about, no "maltreatment" or nothing. Those nutters don't know what they're on about! Now One was helping our record we felt it were like an ongoing thing . . . like when we kicked the bucket, maybe the kids would carry on making history for us.
| 12.10.2.1 | Soon I got Claire's One pregnant and she too had her own sprat (One), while Martha's One had her second, Two. It were getting harder to tell them all apart, and we didn't want to separate them out into the house like -- curb their freedom -- so we kept the decimal system and made them wear tags. Newborns were given their own numbers depending on what sprats were around at the time, so like Martha's One was exclusively 1 (the first sprat), and Claire's One were 3.1, and Martha's One's One were 11.9.1 and Claire's One's One were 12.10.2.1. It made perfect sense, it were simple. |
| 13.11.3.2
14.12.4.3.1 15.13.4.4.2 15.15.5.5.3 15.15.6.6.4.1 15.15.7.7.5.2
15.15.8.8.6.4 15.15.9.9.7.5 15.15.10.10.8.6 15.15.10.10.8.7.1 |
All the sprats were spoiling Martha's womb. She were exhausted and near dead sometimes, so we said we'd draw the curtains when she got to fifteen to give her time to retire, put her feet up. I were dead proud when Martha's Two -- our first lad -- got Martha's Four pregnant, and she had her own sprat nine months later. Felt like a real father-son bonding moment, ya know? But them protesters breached the wall when this were aired on Channel Four -- I mean, it were done tasteful like, but the protesters was mad and in the night kidnapped a whole bunch of them, like Martha's Thirteen and Four's One, and a few others in there. We was devastated! We was on target for making fifty babies! Said the whole thing were barbaric, were inhuman. What about the Mormons, we said? Or about our rivals on US TV, the Duggars?
So Claire stopped producing at fifteen anall. We wasn't going to win the award for having the most kids from the same mother -- that were held by Feodor Vassilyev's missus in the 1700s, with a total of sixty-nine sprats! Four sets of quadruplets, seven of triplets and sixteen of twins. Imagine spending your whole life knocked up, now ain't that more barbaric, newspaper people? Mind you, we never got lucky with twins or triplets until Claire's Seven had twins during her latest knocking up, so that weren't helping our record. Neither were these crackpots nicking all our kids and planting them in orphanages: we'd never get them back. And they were taking the girls on purpose to stop us making more! |
15.15.10.10.8.7.?
The trauma near killed Martha. She were getting on a bit now, as were I, old duffers, and we was looking forward to sitting back and watching our record grow. The TV show got taken off the air and a vibe were forming around the house. The media made us look like freaks, like horrible creeps in a big house, and an enquiry were launched into supposed "paedophilia" and "incest" taking place. Our lawyers told us to get the hell out the country and never come back. So me and Martha and Claire, we hotfooted it out there to Paris, leaving Martha's One in charge of the household.
We tallied up the amount of sprats we'd made before we left -- it were sixty-four -- and we was heartbroken when the Guinness Book of Records got us on the blower with bad news. Turns out we'd broke no records at all. We didn't have the most kids of one family. I hadn't fathered the most sprats with my wife, my wife's sister, or my daughter. We hadn't had the youngest pregnancy in history. Our record, they said, was the most amount of babies conceived for the purpose of making a record, but that wasn't a record they wanted to include in the Guinness Book at that time.
From our hideout, I asked Martha this question: "D'you think we wasted our lives?"
She squinted at me. "Nah, it were a laugh. I hope they all come and visit us someday, if they know who we are."
The Piker Press moderates all comments.
Click here for the commenting policy.