Okay, listen, “JEWELS” is a stretch. Claudia is selling some of her homemade earrings at a crafts fair and this is like one-step up from macaroni jewelry people. Within two minutes, a local boutique owner purchases a pair of earrings and gives Claudia a downpayment to make 4 more pairs.
That downpayment is $50. FIFTY DOLLARS!! And that’s 1990 money people! So it’s worth almost twice as much in today’s dollars. Geez. Well let’s hope she does more with this career opportunity than Stacey did.
Oh wait, she wants to use the advance to let the kids they baby-sit for buy plants to pot for a plant sale. Smh. You know you’re in a cult when they start taking all your money.
One day, Claudia goes over to Kristy’s house to babysit her little sister Karen because Kristy is busy studying. She also brings over the jewelry she’s been working on, which soon goes missing.
Kristy immediately blames their housekeeper, Julie. Oh. So like. She’s classist too. Geez, Kristy. So they babysitters decide to go undercover (aka wear brightly colored sunglasses) and stalk her through scenic downtown Rutherford, NJ — I mean Stoneybrook, CT. Lucky for them, the housekeeper is pretty spacey and doesn’t catch them. But they’re also terrible detectives and lose track of her.
In another stroke of luck, Julie walks right into the pizza place they’re hanging out in. They notice she’s wearing Claudia’s earrings but they’re all afraid to confront her.
Meanwhile, Karen keeps trying to get Kristy to check out her tree with cool stuff in it. But Kristy is too busy trying to deal with Julie to see the tree. So I think we all know where this is going.
When Kristy finally works up the courage to call Julie a thief to her face, Julie tells Kristy that the earrings were a birthday gift from Karen. Connecting the dots, Kristy realizes that Karen only wants her attention and was planning to give the jewelry back as soon as she ventured over to the tree.
Very Special Lesson: How many of these episodes are dedicated to Kristy learning not to be an a-hole? TBH I never read a Kristy-centered book in my BSC days and now I’m remembering why.
The Very Special Blog 
If Karen really wants attention, she should never take things without asking because she nearly got Claudia in trouble and she made them think it was the housekeeper, Julie who did it. Borrowing things from someone without permission is sort of stealing because she should have tried to even talk to Claudia what happened because Claudia “owner” the jewelry, not Kristy and Claudia listens to Karen more than Kristy. If she really wants to give the earrings back to Claudia, why taking one pair of earrings and give them to someone else as a present? Most of the time, people don’t ask for a present back they give to the receiver. That’s messed up. Karen lies to cover her mistakes. Kristy is right for 1 thing, Karen knew it’s wrong to take things without permission.
Karen should have come in a different way to get attention and not taking something that doesn’t belong to her. She literally knew it’s wrong.
True but Karen is seven and she did not “make” a bunch of older girls jump to the conclusion that the housekeeper was a thief. That was unfair judgment on their part that should never have happened.