"Kamusta, tatay"

"Kamusta any pag-aaral mo?"

"Gusto ko malalaking suso"

"Maganda yan"

Though Lawrence couldn't be certain, he was sure that the deeper-sounding voice almost sounded like that of his father - though there was no chance of that being the case. It had been ten years since he'd last seen him and he'd known well during that time that it was impossible for him to leave the Philippines. Whatever was going on inside, Lawrence saw it as opportunity to leave and go home. It was twenty past the hour and Lawrence would be late if he stuck around; which he didn't want to anyway. Lawrence, hoping nobody had seen him, crept away, trying to not think too hard about what he had just seen.

It was hard not to, however, and seeing Nathan and Lauren around the school the following day didn't help in solving Lawrence's desire for a feasible explanation as to why he would be living underground in a garden shed - why a random garden shed was even there was a whole mystery on its own. Lawrence would normally pass word of his findings to Hannah but he was afraid that he would gain more suspicions towards his father, which probably would have been rather irrational and would, once again, stretch further than what Lawrence was willing to believe or even consider. Though he was quite confident in what he had seen and confidence was not something that Lawrence felt very often, so it had to be true. As the day progressed, Lawrence found it difficult to not mention his findings to Hannah, particularly during English in which they began to talk intensively about him.

A week had passed, it was the first day of April. Lawrence had still not told his friend about Nathan nor had he returned to the site in which everything took place. Of all the questions that were floating around in Lawrence's head, the biggest one was of whom the voice belonged to. Lawrence had dismissed the idea of it being his father's upon hearing it - surely, if Nathan could look like him, another Filipino man could sound like his father and who was to say that the person wasn't Filipino and merely knew the native language? "Maybe it's Nathan's dad" thought Lawrence. Even then, he still wanted to make sure. Just in case.

Later that same day, at three minutes past the hour, Lawrence had just seen Hannah off on her bus home. A few weeks prior, Hannah had made observations of sorts as to when Nathan would be on the bus both on the way to school and the way back. She had observed that he typically took a while getting home and would most likely be on the bus coming next. Lawrence had noticed that they were usually on a bus that came into Elephant and Castle between four o'clock and ten past the hour so now would be one of his few chances of getting into Nathan's bus.

He walked promptly over to the bus stop directly after the one he and Hannah usually departed from. Knowing that Nathan always sat at the front of the bus on the upper deck, Lawrence could easily see that the next 343 bus was carrying Nathan, who was now accompanied by his younger sister, codenamed "Lauren". Not fifteen minutes had gone by and Lawrence found himself by the garden shed again. The journey there was slightly more risky than the last, with Lauren being there and all. Though, as far as Lawrence knew, he remained undetected. He had also taken a few precautions beforehand - he had put on a coat that fully covered his blazer and had removed his tie which had a distinct purple and black colour. He had also covered his school logo in his bag with a poorly ripped-out piece of paper he'd gotten from his Maths book.

Lawrence lightly tapped his hand on the wall of the shed, it sounded hollow and felt as if he could knock the whole thing over if he kicked hard enough. All the while, he could vaguely make out some parts of a conversation from down below. Lawrence couldn't pick out any specific words though it did sound quite loud and even aggressive - as if they were shouting or having an argument. He was now even more curious to know what was inside.

Whether he liked it or not, Lawrence would have to force his way inside. After all, there would be no point in knocking the front door, considering that it most likely wouldn't be heard anyway. He didn't know what awaited inside but he was so desperate for answers that mindlessly barging into their sweet hideout seemed like the only logical thing to do. He quietly snuck around to the front of the shed where the door was. Surprisingly, the door had a lock so he couldn't simply walk in. Though considering how fragile the shed felt and how Lawrence had previously managed to break down much larger gates made out of steel, a frail wooden door didn't seem to pose much of a threat.

Lawrence took a few steps back, enough for him to be able to ram the door down. He realised that it wasn't a very subtle way to enter and it probably was illegal but he figured that raising children in a random garden shed underground wasn't very legal either. Just as he had taken his last step backwards, Lawrence prepared for the worst as he tried to find firm footing on the ground and pretended to analyse the structure to find the right place to knock the door down, though really, he was just nervous and trying to stall for time.

Just as he had gained the courage to make his move, he suddenly began to feel the ground rumble from beneath him. "What's going on down there?" Lawrence asked himself. Though it wasn't coming from under the ground, Lawrence looked down and saw a pair of caterpillar tracks rolling towards him. They belonged to an excavator with a relatively small-in-size wrecking ball attached to its arm.

Lawrence stepped further away from the shed as the excavator came to a halt just a few metres away. He watched as it swung its arm back and launched the wrecking ball towards the shed; bringing it down in ten seconds flat. Lawrence gazed, mostly in confusion, at the wreckage. It seemed that someone had finally noticed the creepy old garden shed in the middle of nowhere and decided to do something about - but what of the people underground? Under the shattered fragments of wood, Lawrence could somewhat make out the door on the ground which Nathan had gone in to the last time. Before Lawrence could fully assess the situation, he heard a soft but shrill voice shout "Hey! Are you hurt?"

Lawrence turned around as a stout-looking construction woman came towards him at a moderate jogging pace. He was afraid that he would be in trouble for being close to the site though, thankfully, he needn't to worry. "Uh, no." he replied. "Sorry, I didn't know that you had intentions of knocking this shed down"

"Did you not see the multiple danger signs over there?" she asked as he pointed towards a multitude of white and red warning signs - one having the words "DANGER - PEOPLE MUST NOT PASS THIS BOARD" explicitly inscribed on it as if to make itself meticulously clear. "I suppose not" Lawrence remarked as he blushed sheepishly, realising that he had been so focused on being unseen by Nathan and Lauren to even notice the warnings. "But for what reason did you decide to knock down this particular garden shed?" he inquired. "Apparently, the the council wanted to repurpose the large amount of space here so they asked me to dispose of this old shed. I do find it a bit odd how that one random garden shed was placed in the middle of this empty space. Clearly, it was of use to nobody, it didn't even have proper flooring, barring that one door-like object"

Lawrence peered over, the construction worker was right. Seemingly, the floor of the garden shed was just the regular concrete surface, unlike the rest of the shed which was made of wood. "Do you suspect that maybe people used for- I don't know… housing, maybe?" he asked. "I doubt it. In fact, I can't think of any logical use for that thing… though as for the space itself, I've heard that there used to be garages here with some… odd vehicles that would occasionally in them." she said, grimly. What the construction worker had said provoked a lot of thought into Lawrence's mind, particularly the comment about 'odd vehicles'. Wishing to avoid asking any further queries, Lawrence gave a quick "Okay, bye" to the worker and walked quickly home.

On the way home, Lawrence couldn't make sense of what he as just seen. The garden shed had been obliterated by an excavator with a wrecking ball, which seemed rather excessive for a small wooden structure but the door leading to - what he thought he saw - was a basement remained. The destruction of the shed mattered none for seemingly, Nathan and his co. lived underground. Strangely, despite the events that had just occurred, Lawrence didn't see anyone emerge from underneath but he was sure that Nathan and Lauren had gone in and whoever their caretaker was was also inside with whoever else possibly inhabited the place. Lawrence knew that they had to still there and was certain that he would have another look but he decided to give the construction workers time to clean up with the wreckage before he did. All the same, he was still somewhat disgruntled that he wasn't able to get any answers but at least entering the hideout would be a much more simple task - assuming that nobody beat him to it.