The twine museum was amazing. It started with a big exhibit about twine, thread, string, cord; the origins of so many words and the differences between them. I wasn't quite so irrationally exuberant when I arrived as I had been right after watching that hypnosis regression fil, but I was still enthusiastic about seeing all the things that I had missed last time.
I didn't have my mittens on this time, and I was allowed to pick things up. But Lindy insisted that as this was a punishment, I still shouldn't be free to do what I wanted. So we had agreed that I could have my hands free, so long as I wasn't allowed to play with my phone. And I knew that if my sister thought I was being too dextrous for a little baby, she could call for some extra punishment later. I didn't particularly mind that; it gave me a chance to play along with the role of a baby, grasping things clumsily because that was a part of the game, rather than a physical restraint.
After we passed through the big entrance hall, we were led into an area that looked hundreds of years old; there was dust in the air, and all the room's metalwork had surfaces rough with rust. I'd been amazed when I was younger about how old and beaten-up everything was. But now I was looking at it more carefully, I could see that this wasn't a room full of neglected factory machinery. This was stuff that had been stored, sometimes looked after and sometimes ignored. But it had also been restored by someone who cared a lot about the history, and who wanted to ensure that it looked its age. So the metal was carefully polished, adding shine to the patina rather than trying to hide it. It was clear that the people working here cared about the atmosphere, and the feel of a factory a hundred years ago as well as the actual equipment.
This room was very long. There were a set of rails running the length of the room, with lengths of rope strung along between two carriages at opposite ends. Each carriage had a complex mechanism of wheels and gears on, which caused various hooks to rotate relative to each other. And there was a man dressed up in some period costume, walking up and down the rails while sliding the rope through some kind of tool that could make it twist in the right way as the gears at each end turned. It was incredible the amount of effort he was putting in, and as a child I'd wondered why anybody would do that. But now, I tried to follow his hands as he worked, and the complexities of the gear setup, twisting all those separate pieces together into a single rope.
I still couldn't actually understand how the machine worked. But I was clearly smarter than I had been the last time I was here, because now I could see just how complex the process was. Now I knew that there was something I didn't know, which seemed to have completely passed me by when I was younger. And so now I could be excited to watch again, and not claim that I was bored by the simplicity of the show.
Branching off the ropewalk, there were entrances that led to all kinds of different exhibits. The signs around them all looked like the kind that would have pointed to different areas of the factory a hundred years ago, but the names were enigmatic and exciting. I could see how I would have found some of them boring when I was a kid, because I'd tried to pretend that this stuff held no more interest for me. But now I could allow myself to be excited, and I could see all of the things that I would have been embarrassed to be seen enjoying on our last visit. As weird as it seemed, the babyish outfit, and the stroller I was tightly strapped into, gave me a certain kind of freedom. They gave me an excuse not to keep pretending that I was a big girl, and a little excuse was all that I needed.
I turned to one of the doors and pointed. I could remember more clearly, now that I was here, the thoughts that had gone through my mind on our last visit. I'd seen the images on the posters about this place, making one of the exhibits seem like some kind of science fiction thing, with illustrations of strings in space, or made out of lasers or something. I'd been so curious, not knowing what they were talking about. But at the same time, someone at school had been saying I still acted like a kid, and I wasn't happy. I didn't even remember who'd said it now, so it couldn't have been a close friend. But the teasing had been an important thing to me back then, and somehow I'd wanted to show Lindy that I was a big girl now. It didn't make any sense in hindsight, but to the childish me it had been such a big decision.
I had told Dad that I didn't want to look at the things that were kids. I was too big to look at the fun stuff, and I wanted to be super serious and learn something. I might not have worded it like that, but I knew now that it must have sounded just as silly to the adults in the room. If they'd ignored the silliness of a small child I would probably have had a whale of a time; they should have told me that learning was good for me, or something. But they had gone along with my demands, probably thinking that we would come back next year and I would either have grown out of my interest in the outer space strings, or I would have gotten bored with insisting that I was too old for fun. Somehow it hadn't happened, and I really wanted to see now what I had missed out on.
"Mommy, Mommy!" I muttered, giving myself over to the childish role properly now. I bounced in my seat, and even the way all the straps held me in place somehow made it feel more real; like I was an actual baby, and I needed these restraints to stop me falling out. I waved my finger in the direction of the doorway with the rainbows on the sign. But before I could beg to see the space exhibit beyond, I found a pacifier in my mouth.
"Aww, she's so excited," Lindy cooed, and as long as we were both laughing I saw nothing to complain about. Maybe I was supposed to pretend that I hated this, so that she would feel bad about putting me here. But I was just realising how much fun I'd missed out on in the past out of some misplaced desire to grow up sooner, and I was enjoying myself too much to be sad. "Do you want something, baby? It's a shame you don't know real words yet, so we don't know what you want. We'll just have to make all the choices for you."
I blushed at that, and wondered if the ropewalker would see how much I was glowing as he passed. But I didn't have the choice, that much was clear, and I couldn't mess things up for myself again. And having someone else choose where we were going seemed almost as fun as walking down a tightrope into outer space like the boy on a vaguely-remembered poster. However it went I was going to be a happy baby today.
Lindy wanted to see the factory first; how the factory made string now. The signs for the modern factory pointed outside again, across a huge courtyard where vehicles could carry pallets of baled cotton, twine, or whatever else they needed. We had to stay between two lines of cones to make sure we weren't in the way of any of the trucks, and I thought my teeth might be shaken out as Mum pushed the stroller briskly across the cobbled path. I couldn't talk through the shaking, but when I thought about it a bit more I realised that to a baby it would just be another new experience; and I let myself giggle.
The factory building looked pretty imposing. The nearest wall was just a brick slab twenty feet high, with a single door. But it was old brick, not concrete, and as I looked closer I realised that there were two different colours of brick there. This was the original building, which had once been a traditional ropeworks like the one we had just seen. It had been extended and enlarged over the years, but it was the heart of the business, before the museum that had grown up around it.
We'd been able to hear a dull rumble as we crossed the courtyard, but once we stepped through the door the sound was all around us. It was the kind of noise that might force you to lean closer and repeat yourself as you leaned closer; a roar that rhythmically went up and down in volume. It gave me the impression of a monster howling, or the scream of engines pushed to their limit, combined with the ticking inside a giant clock. And we still weren't face to face with the machine itself. Instead we saw a boxy room that might have been some kind of entranceway in the past, or a staff cafeteria. I didn't know if I had subconsciously remembered from our last visit, or it was just an obvious guess, but the first of eight coloured boards along the walls said that the workers would have been served lunch here – pies from a local shop were always on the menu – in the days before the plant was fully automated.
I laughed a little as I saw that, and then stretched out my arms, hoping Mum could see that I was ready for the next sign. They had big numbers in the corner, each one about a different part of the factory, beneath which there were exploded diagrams or other illustrations surrounded by text. The diagram for the old cafeteria, not surprisingly, had a picture of a dozen jolly workers eating pies, as well as a diagram of an old clock in one corner, and explanations of how it would punch time cards, as well as an explanation of the shift system. I looked back and forth between the diagram and the clock on the wall beside it, trying to take in all the details. The next panel seemed to be about the new, computerised system, and had a picture of two men in front of a control panel, looking down over the top of the giant machines.
The remainder of the boards were dotted every few metres along a set of metal steps, like the fire escapes we would see at the back of civic buildings. There was a line of people slowly proceeding up the steps; some stopping on the landings to read the boards, while others filed past with little interest in the text. There were children here as well, running around while their parents attempted to keep them under control. A part of me wished that I could be so wild; not caring about the museum so much as being in a new place. But right now I was wondering more if there was a way up to the factory that could be navigated by a stroller, or if they would have to release me to get up there.
"Oh, it looks like there's a lot of steps," Mum said, clearly thinking the same thing. "Do you think you're big enough to walk up the steps, Sally? But you have to hold onto both our hands and not run away. Can you promise that you'll be good if I unbuckle you? You can walk with us and look at all the pictures of the machines before we go and look at the real things. Would you like that?" I nodded energetically, and I was genuinely excited as I felt her start to unfasten all the stroller's straps.
"She wants to read the posters," Lindy said. "She doesn't know she's too little to read. Somebody needs a baby brain top up."
"Oh, that is true," Mum said thoughtfully. "You'll enjoy this more if you're feeling like a real little baby for a few minutes, won't you dear? Pee for Mommy, dear."
I wanted to say that it wasn't fair, but there was nothing I could do to stop it. All my big girl thoughts went away as I felt my diapie getting warm, and for just a couple of minutes I could feel like a baby again; so excited to see the machines, but knowing that I had to be good for my Mommy.