Magpie?

We have two of the most adorable kittens.  They are now about 5 months old. We adopted them from the shelter when they were about 9 weeks and half feral.
They are two of the most intelligent cats we have ever had the pleasure of living with.  Our friend, Cathy, adopted the third sister and someone we don't know adopted the only boy.  However these kitties are special for lots of reasons. All their names begin with L.  We have LouAnne (on the right) and Lillie (on the left). Cathy has Lizzie and the brother was named Louie.  We have little recent info on the boy but all 3 girls like to carry stuff around in their mouths: large and small stuffed toys, small parts, bits of paper, dead mice.  They like moving things from place to place and playing with them here and there.  They rarely lose anything and are already fine mouse hunters (which was my original reason for adopting them).

They also seem to have telepathy with each other as whenever one has something special the other just shows up and assumes sharing is just fine.  They run and jump and climb all over the house, each other and us.  After a couple of months of wariness they now walk by Basel, carefully, and sometimes touch his paw or tail. As of yet they do not answer to their names as they have each other rather than depending on humans for stimulation so have not been encouraged to go outside.  We think in the spring they will just automatically use the doggy doors as most of our previous cats have learned to do.

Jim has been well trained as their personal Jungle Jim.   They love climbing all over him, then sleeping in his arms or on his shoulder.

Neither kittie likes to be picked up off the floor yet both enjoy being petted on the windowsill where they eat or if they climb into my lap.  LouAnne often joins me on the bed while I am getting dressed.  Yesterday I set out my pants and then a shirt down on the spread, then an earring to see if it matched well enough.  I saw Lou Anne come up the stairs and heard her jump onto the bed.  I turned to get a pair of socks out of a drawer and saw her leap off the bed and scamper down the stairs. I heard her playing in the kitchen and the front hall.  That is normal as both kitties store things in the hall to bat around.   But odd as she usually wants lots of pets and winds her way around me while I dress.  Then I picked up my shirt, put it on and remembered I had an earring sitting on it. Sigh. I looked and felt and looked some more. I knew I did not hear it hit the floor but looked under the bed and dresser anyways.  Finally I gave up and wore a different pair.

Then I thought about LouAnne's odd behavior and wondered.  hmmmnnnn  So I looked all over the kitchen floor and in the front hall and told Jim my suspicion.  He said as far as he could see they had not yet formed any interests in sparkly things but he would keep an eye out.

This morning he told me he found my earring at the bottom of the stairs.

So do we have a kitten or a magpie in disguise?