A Semester in the Life of a Garbage Bag — Gordon Korman

It's not easy being an eleventh-grade garbage bag.

Sean Delancey had expected his junior year to be normal. That was his first mistake. His second mistake was in allowing his new English project partner, Raymond Jardine, to convince him to join in an off-the-wall scheme to win a trip to Theamelpos, a Greek island renowned as a source of good luck to everyone who visits there. The hapless Jardine is confident that once he reaches this island, his luck and life will change. It better -- bad luck is his middle name!

Before the contest ends, Raymond and Sean pass off their own poetry as the writing of an obscure, and now deceased, Canadian poet; pass off Sean's grandfather as that obscure, and now deceased, poet; ruin a piece of U.S. Government property to the tune of a mere thirty-three million dollars; turn the big dance of the season into a near-riot -- school's never been like this before. And that's only the work of one semester!