The chapter image is of Yotsuba holding a teddy bear, presumably Ena's, in one arm and holding a box's handles with the other. Ena is adjusting her hat. Both are smiling at each other, and wearing relatively fancy outfits.
We "hear" the sound from the chapter title. Yotsuba is wearing a dress with a large white collar and a big black button, and holding a wand with an end that looks like a sunflower. She says, "Tsuku-tsuku-boshi! Summer will come to an end!" She waves her wand, and a bunch of cicadas fall to the ground. She thanks them for their hard work, though she may well have said "Otsukare-sama desu" ("You must be tired"), which is, according to the translator's notes for K-ON! volume 2, p. 48, "a standard way of telling someone that you appreciate the work they've done," but may also refer to the fact that they're lying on their backs, which may indicate sleep to her. She says "Tsuku-tsuku-boshi! Tsuku-tsuku-boshi! Summer will come to an end!" and waves her wand again, causing the trees to burst forth into... blossoms? "Spring has come!" Hey, wait a minute...
Yotsuba wakes up. She sits up, stands up, and swings an imaginary wand. She then notices that it's not so hot. She enters the kitchen, where her dad is cooking... soup or stew, it's hard to tell, and announces that it's tepid. She wonders if summer ended while she was asleep. He asks if she means how it's gotten cool in there. "Yeah, you could say that." He points out that he turned on the air conditioner, and that it's not cool outside, but probably the hottest it's been all summer. Yotsuba tests his claim by opening the door. HEAAT! "It's still summer!"
Koiwai wishes their table had a little more room, and wasn't so homely. Yotsuba says she can make summer end. Koiwai asks the "moron" what she's talking about. She says she needs "the fairy clothes". (So she's a season fairy, only more season-oriented and less facet-of-weather-oriented?) Koiwai asks if she means the ones her grandma got her, the "flower cupid" ones. Yotsuba says it should be more like a triangle, and points it out.
She wears it. It's not a whole lot like the dress in her dream or the one in the chapter image, though it's closer to the dream one in terms of shape, anyway. She asks if it's close, without specifying to what. Koiwai wonders if she means to the princess of some faraway land, but apparently, she's trying to be a tsukutsukuboshi. As in, "summer will come to an end." However, Koiwai likes summer, so asks Yotsuba not to make it end. As he washes dishes, he admits that he hates it when it's hot, so asks for a cooler summer. Yotsuba says it's really tough, and that it's just like a man to say something like that. Koiwai repeats her assertion that it's hard. He has to do some more work, so she tells him to work hard.
Yotsuba sits in a room with the window open. She finds it hot, and tries to remember that term from chapter 3, global "something". She has to cool thing off, or the globe is in danger! Of course, this means turning on all the air conditioners in the house (thanks, Asagi) and open the refrigerator. That'll fix it! She looks for ice cream, but they never have any. She tells her dad she's going next door, which he okays. While she's gone, the breaker flips, and Koiwai presumably loses some work. Double Face Palm.
Asagi can't take the heat, and excuses herself to die. Her mother says, "OK." Opening the ice cream drawer, she makes the horrifying discovery that there's no ice cream! Yotsuba is horrified, too. Asagi and her mother are surprised by her sudden presence. Asagi thinks Yotsuba looks nice today, and wonders if she's dressed that way because of the heat. Yotsuba asks her if she knows what she is. Asagi thinks hard about it, but doesn't seem to know. Yotsuba thinks it's because she has no hat, and asks Mrs. Ayase if she has a triangle hat. Mrs. Ayase doesn't think there is such a thing. Asagi offers to make one. It ends up being made out of newspaper. Asagi thinks Yotsuba is "so cute". Yotsuba asks if Asagi knows what she is now. After mulling it over, Asagi asks if it's for [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children
's_Day_(Japan) Kids' Day]]. It's not. Yotsuba guesses she need a sunflower. Mrs. Ayase observes that she needs a lot.
Yotsuba asks where she can get one. Asagi isn't sure, but Mrs. Ayase thinks there are some by the levee, and Asagi remembers that as being correct. Yotsuba asks, "Levee?" Asagi asks if she knows the river out back, and restates the likelihood of sunflowers growing by the levee. Yotsuba asks, "Levee?" again.
(A levee, also called a levée, dike, dyke, embankment, floodbank, or stopbank is "an elongated naturally occurring ridge or artificially constructed fill or wall, which regulates water levels. It is usually earthen and often parallel to the course of a river in its floodplain or along low-lying coastlines." (excerpt from The Other Wiki) )
Asagi offers to take her, and get her some ice cream along the way. Of course, she needs to get it from her mom... who's skeptical about it being for Yotsuba at all.
Back at the Koiwai residence, Jumbo enters, wearing a shirt with an empty beach scene with palm trees. Koiwai asks what's with him, and if he's still on summer break. Jumbo says it's his last day, and says it's hot, in Japan, at least. Koiwai asks what he's talking about, and gets a souvenir of macadamia nuts. Koiwai wonders if this means Jumbo went to Hawaii. It does... "Huh?" ...and he just got back. "What?!" "You know, Hawaii. Aloha." Koiwai points out that he's been "here", and just went fishing. But after that, Jumbo made some calls and found a plane with a last-minute cancellation, and took it, stayed the night, and came back. (So that's what he was doing while the Koiwais went shopping, Yotsuba played with a soccer ball, Ena studied up on global warming, Yotsuba and Torako discussed where they're from, and Yotsuba dealt with Fuuka's heartbreak (and later reported on it).) Now Jumbo wants to call Miura to tell her he went to Hawaii. Koiwai gets it, and calls him an idiot. (I see his point; Jumbo went to Hawaii pretty much just long enough to say he was there, so he could compete with a 10-year-old. If I were going to Hawaii, assuming it's not a business trip, I'd want to experience it.) Jumbo asks him who he's calling an idiot, and wants the nuts back, but Koiwai says there's no returning the gift.
Asagi and Yotsuba are at the levee. Presumably, they didn't drive the Chevy there. (Asagi has her hair up in a ponytail now.) She says there used to be some there when she was a kid. Yotsuba notices the weeds. Asagi then spots some, and thps off in the direction of them. She points them out, and Yotsuba says they're huge. Asagi thought they turned to face the sun, and notices that they aren't turning. Yotsuba goes to take one of the smaller ones, pulls it out, and asks Asagi if she gets it. Asagi doesn't think it's a soldier, then guesses a summer fairy. "Yes!" She says she's a tsukutsukuboshi. (The "boshi" part being why she needed the hat, as explained in Yotsuba & 4-Panel Manga.) She thinks the sunflower is how the make the summer end.
Asagi considers, and says it isn't the tsukutsukuboshi she imagined. Yotsuba is shocked, and asks how hers is different. Asagi says its sort of hunched over, and bends at the waist and knees some (eyeballing it, I'd estimate a 135-degree angle at both bends, andholds her arms straight at the sides. She then explains that a tsukutsukuboshi is a cicada, shocking Yotsuba. Yotsuba asks if people think that, and Asagi responds in the affirmative. They then hear a cicada, and go over to the tree where it is. While they're there, Asagi points it out.
Back at the Koiwais', Yotsuba enters, carrying ice-cream-on-a-stick, and a sunflower. Jumbo greets her; the greeting is returned. Yotsuba has big news for her dad, but he's more interested in where the ice cream came from. She says she had the neighbors get her some. Koiwai thinks that was pretty shameless, and says he's going to have to thank them. Yotsuba repeats that she has news. Koiwai then notices that the flower is covered in dirt. Yotsuba tells him not to mind it. ("Donmai", perhaps?) He minds, of course, but Yotsuba says it again, and repeats that she has big news. Koiwai realizes that he's not going to get anywhere until he asks what her news is, so he does. She tells him not to be shocked, and reveals that a tsukutsukuboshi... is a cicada. Koiwai plays along, pretending it was something he didn't know, and claiming he thought they looked like the way Yotsuba was dressed. Yotsuba states that they don't, and says she heard them. Jumbo asks if she's a tsukutsukuboshi. Yotsuba says they're all cicadas. The final panel shows the drawing from Yotsuba & 4-Panel Manga.
In the lower right corner of the copyright page, Yotsuba stands on one leg in the outfit from her dream and waves her sunflower wand. The next page says "Enjoy Everything" and "to be continued..." and has Yotsuba looking at the mess of Japanese letters on the ground.
The next page tells us about volume 5.
The next few pages advertise:
- Newtype USA
- Maburaho
- Angel/Dust Neo
- A Little Snow Fairy Sugar
- Neon Genesis Evangelion Angelic Days
- Azumanga Daioh Class Album
- www.findanimenetwork.com
So that's it for volume 4!
Next time: Volume 5, Chapter 28!
