  Motivated by two independent experiments revealing a resistance minimum at
the Landau level (LL) filling factor $\nu=2+4/9$, characteristic of the
fractional quantum Hall effect (FQHE) and suggesting electron condensation into
a yet unknown quantum liquid, we propose that this state likely belongs in a
parton sequence, put forth recently to understand the emergence of FQHE at
$\nu=2+6/13$. While the $\nu=2+4/9$ state proposed here directly follows three
simpler parton states, all known to occur in the second LL, it is topologically
distinct from the Jain composite fermion (CF) state which occurs at the same
$\nu=4/9$ filling of the lowest LL. We predict experimentally measurable
properties of the $4/9$ parton state that can reveal its underlying topological
structure and definitively distinguish it from the $4/9$ Jain CF state.
