There's something pink and flat coming this way. Oh. Hi, Lana. "You're already back," she tells Clark. He says it's nothing quite so heroic. He's just picking up his books as a pit-stop. Lana says that if Clark needs anything, she's there for him. Class notes, writing papers, long lingering looks that do nothing to advance the story. Yeah, let's see what her new boyfriend thinks of that. Clark drops his books. Lana imparts a lesson on Clark: ever since she bravely survived her horse-stomping accident and now walks perfectly even though her leg was broken in three places, she knows now that you can't do it alone. You need some Poor Man's Wes Bentley to help you through it. Clark should look into that. Clark says that what's happened to him doesn't fix how things are between himself and Lana. All right, I may not like Lana, but Clark is being a prick this week. Lana says she was just trying to help, but that she won't make that mistake again. If she does make that mistake, can she make it on another show? Pete says that whoever said, "'Absence makes the heart grow fonder' obviously hasn't met" Lana and Clark. Three lines, Pete. You're pushing things as it is.

Pete closes the locker and it's really, really loud. Everything seems to get slowed down as Clark's hearing amps up. The closed captioning helpfully suggests, "Clark's hearing enhanced," which must read like some sort of sick prank to those who actually need to use the closed captioning. Clark can hear every click of the combination lock on his locker as Pete spins it. Loud locker-slamming noises. "Aggghhh!" Clark yelps. Too-long jeans on boots walking down the hall make an ugly fashion noise that is crippling to our hero. He winces. Zippers! Oh, God, the zippers! "Clark? What's the matter?" Pete asks, but his voice must sound like a thousand yodels. Clark asks Pete if he heard that. "Heard what?" Pete asks. "Hello," we hear. It's Chloe's voice. "What do you want?" Chloe asks. Pete can't hear Chloe, but Clark can. Suddenly, we zoom inside Clark's ear in cheesy CGI animation. Not a trace of wax. He is super! Inside Clark's ear, what looks like a bent crutch is doing the horizontal mambo with what looks like a bloated anteater at the end of a slinky. I guess that's an inner ear cochlea or a tinhorn or the humidifier or some sort of ear hammer thingy. Yep, folks, I didn't do well in biology class. The CGI goes nuts, zipping out of Clark's ear, showing us his face and then zipping down the hallway to show us Chloe's conversation first-hand. (Er, first-ear.)